


try to feel the beat

by MaliciousVegetarian



Series: Witcher Pregnancy/Baby Prompts - March [4]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Abortion, Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, If I've missed anything please let me know, Terminal Pregnancy, pregnancy loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29859102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaliciousVegetarian/pseuds/MaliciousVegetarian
Summary: Interruption aside, she would be able to tell something was wrong just from the tightness of Geralt’s forehead and the set of his jaw.  His worry face has always been incredibly cute to her - he just looks soconcerned- and despite the anxiety jumping in her gut she allows herself a small smile.“Something’s wrong with the baby,” he says, and the smile melts off her face.  “The heartbeat - Yenn, it doesn’t sound right.  It doesn’t sound like Tenna’s.”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Witcher Pregnancy/Baby Prompts - March [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189178
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	try to feel the beat

**Author's Note:**

> Day Four: Loss
> 
> One day late but better late than never, right? Also, Quim and Anka are the cute older couple from Bottled Appetites. I love them a lot and decided to include them.
> 
> Warnings: terminal pregnancy, abortion, mpreg

As Geralt approaches her, Yennefer can tell something is wrong. It’s a rare evening on their own - Ciri and Yennefer, who they call Tenna, are at Quim and Anka’s house until nine - and they tend to spend this precious time working on their own pursuits. With a third baby on the way, even this will soon blow away like smoke in the wind, after all. Time together is precious, yes, but they’re both the kind of people who also value time alone.

Interruption aside, she would be able to tell something was wrong just from the tightness of Geralt’s forehead and the set of his jaw. His worry face has always been incredibly cute to her - he just looks so _concerned_ \- and despite the anxiety jumping in her gut she allows herself a small smile.

“Something’s wrong with the baby,” he says, and the smile melts off her face. “The heartbeat - Yenn, it doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound like Tenna’s.”

She stretches her hand out towards his temple, a silent request to see his mind, to hear what he’s hearing. He dips his head toward her in consent. He must be focusing on the sound, because as soon as her fingers brush his skin it’s almost unbearably loud. Geralt’s right, it sounds much different from the steady whooshing she remembers from his pregnancy with Tenna.

“It’s still early on,” she says, trying to reassure them both. “If something’s wrong, it could still very well correct itself.”

Geralt’s brow furrows. “But you understand what I mean?” After a moment, she nods.

The next few weeks are hell. The heartbeat only becomes more irregular. Geralt and Yennefer spend their nights pressed against each other, listening to it. The uncertainty is killing Yennefer. Something’s wrong with their baby and she doesn’t have the skills to figure out what.

“We need to get help,” Geralt tells her quietly one night. “We’re both driving ourselves crazy worrying about this. We need advice.”

Yennefer is forced to agree. She’s been stretched thin the past few weeks, pulling herself taut. It’s been affecting her parenting, she’s been sharper with Ciri and Tenna. She hates that she’s letting it bleed over. They haven’t told the girls about the baby yet. 

“There’s a mage I know,” Yennefer says slowly. “Elena. Technically ze’s part of the council, but ze only heeds them when ze wants to. And ze specializes in healing, has since I’ve known hir.”

Geralt nods, kisses Yennefer on the forehead, and rolls over to go to sleep. She can see his arm moving under the blankets as he places a hand on his stomach. 

The next day, they leave the girls with Quim and Anka again. Yennefer explains the situation to Anka in a whisper, glancing over her shoulder to see if Ciri is listening. She isn’t, but she gives Yennefer a suspicious look as she passes. Tenna waves at them happily from Quim’s hip, calling “Bye bye!” Yennefer loves the two of them so much she thinks her heart might explode.

On the outside, Elena’s house is small and unobtrusive, a stereotypical witch’s cabin in the woods. On the inside, it’s much grander than their house in Rinde. Elena greets them in a dark suit with long coattails, light blond hair cut short. Hir face is more weathered than most mages, and Yennefer knows this was hir choice. Ze smiles at her and kisses her on both cheeks.

“And this must be your husband,” ze says somewhat dismissively, gesturing at Geralt. 

“He is,” Yennefer says, trying to pretend that, after two years of marriage, she doesn’t still feel a thrill when someone refers to Geralt as her husband.

They explain their situation, and Elena leads them down a long hallway full of doors to a small, white-walled room with a stone table in the center. Ze gestures for Geralt to lie down on it, warming the surface with a flick of magic. He follows instructions, wincing as his back presses into the stone. 

Elena lowers hir hands onto Geralt’s now-protruding stomach, ze closes her eyes and hums quietly. Yennefer knows the magic ze’s working, and that the humming is just for concentration.

It seems to take forever, and Yennefer has no idea what to do with her time as it stretches on. A few minutes in, she awkwardly sits in an oak chair near the door and looks intently at the stitches in the hem of her dress.

Finally, Elena pulls away, face lined. Geralt pushes himself up and looks at hir intently, studying hir face for any clue. As ever, Elena doesn’t pull hir punches. “The baby won’t survive to term. The deformity in its heart is too great.”

Geralt lets out a small gasp, and Yennefer has to bite her lip to keep a similar sound from escaping.

“It’s up to you to decide what you want to do next,” Elena says. There’s no gentleness in hir voice, but there is kindness. “You can carry the baby until they pass away naturally and induce labor, or you can terminate the pregnancy. You can come back to me if you choose that, or I’m sure Yennefer can manage, if you’d rather be at home. You don’t have to decide now, of course, and in fact I would suggest you go home and think it over together.”

Yennefer feels like she’s been launched into an alternate timeline. She nods, not trusting herself to speak, because she knew this was a possibility, she did, but that doesn’t make it less awful, less impossible. Nothing feels real around her, down to the air entering her lungs. It makes sense. How could the fabric of the universe be the same when this is their new reality?

Geralt swings his legs off the table and walks over to Yennefer, taking her hand. She uses it to pull herself up. 

“What do you want to do right now?” Yennefer asks.

“I want to go home.” Geralt says. “I want to see the girls.”

Yennefer feels something relax inside of her at the thought of going home to her daughters. 

They say perfunctory goodbyes to Elena and portal out. When they arrive at Quim and Anka’s house, Anka gives them a searching look, but Yennefer shakes her head, bending to pick up Tenna, who tiredly rests her head on her mother’s shoulder. Geralt has one hand on Ciri’s back, shepherding her out the door.

They don’t talk that night. Instead, they find themselves in their bed, listening to the heartbeat again, marveling that it continues.

The next morning they’re busy with Tenna and Ciri, Geralt feeding the former while Yennefer helps the latter practice her spellwork. They keep sending each other tired glances. Yennefer’s pretty sure neither of them slept well.

They don’t have time to talk until that night. Tenna and Ciri have both notices something’s wrong. Ciri keeps giving both of them suspicious glances, and Tenna refuses to go to bed until they’ve both read her a story, when she’s usually satisfied with one. Instead of laying down as they normally do, they sit next to each other on the bed.

“What are you thinking?” Yennefer asks. Geralt leans his head on her shoulder.

“I don’t want them to suffer,” he says. ‘I don’t want them to have to work that hard, to die because their body is giving out.”

Yennefer nods. “I’ve been thinking the same.” Then, after a pause, “where do you want to do it?”

“Here? I want to be at home. I want to be able to see Ciri and Tenna right after. Shit, we’ll have to tell them.”

“We don’t _have_ to,” Yennefer says, but Geralt shakes his head.

“No, I want them to know. I want them to know they have another sibling.”

Something in the phrasing makes Yennefer curious. “Are you - do you think you’ll want to try again?”

Geralt pushes his head into her neck. “I’m not ready to think about that right now.”

“Okay,” Yennefer murmurs, contorting himself slightly to kiss his hair.

“What I want to do,” he continues, “What I want to do is go somewhere tomorrow, somewhere special, so that we’ll have a memory where - so we have a memory where they’re alive.”

“We were talking about taking Tenna to the beach,” Yennefer says. “We could go there?”

“That sounds wonderful.”

They tell the girls the next day. Geralt doesn’t want to wait. Yennefer sort of wishes they would, because she has no idea how to explain this to a three year old.

“We were going to have a baby,” Geralt tells them quietly. “But there’s something wrong with their heart, so we won’t get to keep them.”

“They’re going to die?” Ciri asks.

“They would, if we continued the pregnancy,” Yennefer tells her. “But we’ve decided we don’t want to let them suffer.”

Tenna looks confused. “Where’s the baby?”

“In my tummy,” Geralt tells her. Yennefer can hear him choking up a little bit as he says, “They’re in there to keep them safe.”

“They aren’t a baby we’ll get to hold,” Yennefer jumps in. “But they’re still going to be our baby.”

“Will we get to see them?” Ciri asks, not meeting either of her parents’ eyes. They glance at each other.

“If you want to,” Yennefer says.

“We’re going to the shore tomorrow,” Geralt says. “To make memories together. And then we’ll come home and we’ll all say goodbye.”

Ciri nods.

They spend a good day at the beach, taking Tenna into the shallow waves and watching her laugh in delight as she watches them crash. Ciri goes on a long walk with Geralt, looking for shells and rocks and driftwood. “We can make something with it, to remember this day,” She tells Yennefer.

At the end of the day, they all curl up on an old quilt and watch the sun set, with Tenna and Ciri sitting with their ears pressed against Geralt’s stomach.

The next day, Yennefer loads their bed up with as many soft blankets and towels as she can find, and places the two small vials of potion - one to induce labor and the other to stop the baby’s heart - on the bedside table. Geralt dresses in comfortable clothes while Yennefer takes the girl’s over to Quim and Anka’s house. When she comes back, she watches seriously as Geralt downs the two vials, and they wait for several excruciating moments until Geralt says, “It’s over.” And Yennefer knows their baby is dead.

She makes them tea, right after. They sit with their mugs, and Yennefer reads one of her romance novels out loud. Somehow, they both manage to chuckle.

The day stretches on. Without needing to worry about harming the baby, Yennefer is able to give Geralt a powerful pain potion, and he’s able to stay relatively comfortable.

Finally, the baby slides out. Yennefer picks her up and begins gently patting her dry, careful not to tear her papery skin. She can tell that she’s swollen. She wraps her in a little blanket, and hands her to Geralt.

“Another girl,” she tells him.

They curl up amid the blankets and pillows, staring at their baby. She doesn’t have any hair and her eyes are fused shut, but she still looks like a tiny human. She has ten fingers and ten toes, and a perfect, tiny mouth. They handle her as if she’s a precious and delicate piece of pottery, barely daring to touch her.

“You should go get Ciri,” Geralt says finally. “She wanted to see her.”

Yennefer nods, and quickly portals there and back. Ciri gasps when she sees the baby. “She’s so _little_.”

“She is,” Yennefer says. “Want to hold her?”

Ciri nods, and the baby is passed over to her. “Does she have a name yet?”

Geralt and Yennefer glance at each other. “Is there something you want to call her?” Geralt asks. Ciri looks surprised, but clearly thinks about it.

“Could we name her Pavetta? For my mother?”

“Of course,” Yennefer says gently.


End file.
